Exploring the world we live in through the lenses of the Bible, Psychology and general curiosity
Confession and Forgiveness
Today will you please look up 1 John 1:5-10
I have been studying this section of 1 John lately, first for school (Hurray for Christian homeschool curriculum!), then on my own time. It is a wonderful section of scripture that basically sums up everything about confession and forgiveness, while touching a couple of other subjects.
I think today I’ll mainly cover verse 7, I actually like the King James version best, which is unusual. It says, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I love that! And it’s true! By sending Jesus down to die on the cross for us, God took away the punishment for all of our sins, as long as we confess.
It is very important we know what this word means, so here goes:
My definition of confession: Telling God that you did something wrong and admitting it was wrong.
Rooted and Grounded* definition of confession: Confession means that we agree with God about our sin. That is, we say, “Yes, God, I was selfish (or proud, or boastful, or whatever), and that was sin.”
Dictionary Definition: A statement acknowledging guilt.
*Rooted and grounded is my Homeschool devotional that I have been doing for the past few weeks. It is really good! It encourages me to dive deeper into subjects that are kind of considered the basics, subjects that I wasn’t really paying that much attention to before.
It is important to confess with more than just our words, God can see our hearts, you know, and if we don’t mean what we say then it doesn’t count, to us or to Him.
Why can we know that we are cleansed from our sin? Well, have you ever been mad at somebody, or felt bad about something and you just had to get it off your chest, and once you did you felt better? I know I have.
And what does God say happens to our sin when we confess? He says it disappears, gone forever! How cool is that?!
We don’t have to spend hours confessing our sin everyday either, sometimes just a simple sorry after you, let’s say, spoke a harsh word to somebody. That sorry can mean as much as, “Oh my gosh! God, I was just harsh with somebody when it really wasn’t necessary. Please forgive me.”
You know, growing up that’s what sorry meant, for instance if I did something mean to my siblings I was told to go apologize, and, I don’t remember if it was because my mom told us to, or if it was because that is just what we did, but my siblings always told me they forgave me. So, in a way, sorry has become a confession in this family.
I think it would be OK if you just said a quick prayer every time you realized you had sinned, and then at the end of the day had a little discussion with God about it.
Dear LORD,
I know I am a sinner, I know that I have sinned. Please forgive me for those sins, and help me to avoid sin. Thank you for sending Jesus to save me from my sins, thank you so, so much. I love you.
Amen.
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